Increasingly machines for the preparation of a beverage are configured to operate using a capsule that comprises a dosage of an ingredient of the beverage, for instance, coffee, tea or soup. During preparation an extraction unit of the machine at least partially extracts the ingredient from the capsule, e.g. by dissolution. Examples of such machines are provided in EP 2393404 A1, EP 2470053 A1, EP 2533672 A1, EP 2509473 A1 EP 2685874 A1. The increased popularity of these machines may be partly attributed to enhanced user convenience compared to a conventional beverage preparation machine, e.g. a stove-top espresso maker or a manually operated cafetiére (french press). It may also be partly attributed to an enhanced brewing process of the machine, wherein: the capsule is inserted into a extraction unit; heated water is injected into an inlet made in the capsule; the ingredient within the capsule is extracted by the heated water through an outlet made in the capsule; a brewed beverage is collected from the outlet heated water. During this process operational parameters of the machine can be tailored to the specific capsule and/or ingredients therein to enhance the taste of the beverage. For example, the operational parameters may comprise: water temperature at inlet and outlet; pre-wetting duration; water flow rate; water quantity; other operations during the brewing process. In this way the brewing process is optimised.
The said beverage machines can be adapted for use in public or commercial establishments by the association with a capsule dispensing unit, from which a user is operable to select and/or purchase a capsule from a repository thereof. There is a need for interoperability of such capsule dispensers and beverage preparation machines to control capsule dispensing and beverage preparation operations e.g.: to restrict users stockpiling discounted capsules, which have been dispensed from the capsule dispenser, for use on an unrelated beverage dispensing machine; to restrict capsules not dispensed from the capsule dispenser being used on the beverage preparation machine.
In general it may be undesirable to provide the said interoperability by integrating the capsule dispenser and beverage preparation machine such that dispensed capsules are immediately extracted, this is because: a single capsule dispenser may be used to supply numerous beverage preparation machines; integrating a capsule dispenser on an existing machine may not be desirable, e.g. for reasons of cost; there may be a range of different beverage preparation machines available to the user, whereby the user selects a preferred machine, e.g. a machine with particular beverage preparation options.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,197,377 discloses a system wherein a consumable item, such as a capsule or a container thereof, is supplied from a supplier (rather than a capsule dispenser). The capsule comprises an identifier such as a code e.g. a barcode, RFID or other suitable code. The beverage preparation machine comprises a code reader to identify the capsule by reading the said code of the identifier and is configured to increment a number of authorised extraction processes accordingly. If there are no authorised extraction processes then the beverage preparation machine can be prevented from executing an extraction process. WO 2005104911 discloses a capsule dispensing unit however there is no interoperability with an associated beverage preparation machine.
A drawback of this system is that the capsules require an identifier and the beverage preparation machine must comprise a code reader operable to identify the identifier. Accordingly the system can be expensive and complicated to operate, it may also be complicated to retrofit to existing systems.